Delicious Events for your Calendar
In London, Cornwall & Edinburgh. Plus a new chocolate subscription and a request for feedback!
Hello lovely people,
I hope you’ve had a great summer? Can we believe it’s September? The darker evenings have convinced me. It changes so quickly as August ends, doesn’t it?
Upcoming delicious events in London, Cornwall and Edinburgh are further down, but first, some news, some thoughts and a request for feedback, if you don’t mind:
(if you do: scroll on down… 😘)
If you’re new here (hi! 👋) I try to make easy headers so you can scan my emails easily for what’s most interesting to you. The busines names I make bold, the food/drink items are bold & italics, and addresses and people’s names are in italics. Fun facts and important notes go in quotes like this!
News!
I’m going to be a judge for the Isigny Croissant Competition!
I know! The thrill!
I’ll be judging alongside (only 2 of these 20 finalists for this competition were amongst the 20 Nicola,
and I tried at the croissant event I organised in March - and am still hoping to repeat!), Sally Abé (I ate at The Pem recently - more on that in a future newsletter!), Matt Adlard (self-taught pastry chef and author with a literal million followers on Instagram), Clément Vaugrenard (with his wife he runs the excellent Cake & Layers in Greenwich which is also on my list to tell you about!), Benoit Blin (Bake Off the Professionals judge and Executive Pastry Chef at Le Manoir), Gilles Quilot (Executive Chef at the French Embassy who’s started to make chocolate from the bean) and Cyrille Van Der Stuyft (MOF and pastry consultant in London and NYC).I cannot wait. I’m also just thrilled to be included amongst this group of people. It feels like all my (ahem) hard work of eating croissants around this country and beyond has paid off! 😄
Here’s the shortlist of 20 finalists:
1. @ariesbakehouse (that’s the founder, Jackie McKinson, pictured above)
2. @bakeribaltzersen
3. @holtwhitesbakery
4. @gourmand_cafe
5. @chezmaitre_eltham
6. @chestnut.bakery
7. @qima.cafe
8. @immathebakery
9. @forgebakehouse
10. @thebristolloaf
11. @astridspetitecuisine_
12. @philippe_conticini_uk
13. @twobrosbakerywarwick
14. @jejubakes
15. @thepennybunbakehouse
16. Pantechnicon @ramiammouri.ar
17. @la_panaderia_de_leo
18. @thebutterholic
19. @cornercottagebakery
20. @thecookesbake
Only bakeries who use Isigny butter are eligible to enter and they’re voted in by customers (so, yes, it’s a bit of a popularity contest but I guess that does count for something?).
I’m going to be talking at a public event on Wednesday 18th September at 6.30pm.
It’s a new side passion project organised by some women who work full time. Anyone is welcome, though it’s aimed at women. Tickets are available here, if you fancy coming along.
On a more mundane note,
I’ve been sleeping badly again.
Or not long enough, I should say. I’ve been unable to go back to sleep once I wake up, usually before 5am. Sometimes much earlier. 😴
I’ve been a poor sleeper since my late twenties, but after trying all the sleep hygiene things (I’m such a princess now about dark, cool rooms), I saw a huge improvement in May last year after I started taking (quite a lot of) supplements. This followed a methylation test and was under the guidance of a professional. I also started going to yoga classes twice a week. 🤔 🧘🏻♀️
A few weeks ago I realised I didn’t have any magnesium tablets left and kept forgetting to restock. My friend Jes Salter wrote about magnesium and sleep here for The Times. Interesting as I’d been pretty convinced this was key and here I am having done an unplanned elimination test.
I’ll be getting my blood tested properly in a few weeks just to double check there isn’t something else going on, but I’m glad more tablets arrived yesterday. Have you tried magnesium to improve your sleep before? Shall I report back after the blood tests?
A possible change to this Substack…
During my (many) hours awake in the dark, one of the things I was thinking about was this little space on the internet. I don’t feel quite right paywalling some of the things I write here. I find it hard to decide what not to share because I always want to share everything.
But I do want to give something to the gorgeous people who generously support the time that goes into this via paid subscriptions. 🙏❤️ As I’m sure I’ve told you before, I spend 5-15 hours a week pulling these together so it really helps me continue to put time into it when it becomes part of work that brings in money (those pesky bills to pay, not to mention the (understandably) ever-increasing price of croissants and brownies I’m testing to tell you about. 😅).
Here’s the idea I’m considering:
I remove everything I’ve written here from the paywalls and won’t paywall anything going forwards. BUT, before I do this I will take out the already published city guides and I’ll sell them separately.
I reduce the paid subscription to £4 month (the lowest option), or £36 for the year.
New (& existing) paid subs will get:
a discount on the current and future city guides and maybe other things,
private community threads on here to ask me and others questions,
first chance to book tickets for any events I run
FOUR meet ups a year - two will be on Zoom so it’s accessible from anywhere in the world, and two will be in person in London, in a park or a pub or somewhere else where there will be no fixed cost to attend.
I feel like it would be fun for everyone to bring something to share to these, like a fancy chocolate bar or some homebaked cookies. I really want to lean into this being about connection and community. That’s what great food facilitates, right? And I’m increasingly believing it’s also what life is all about.
The online chats might have a theme or a special guest, or maybe just something informal - we can come back to that if I make the change.
Anyone currently paying a higher sub can, of course, cancel and rejoin at the lower rate, though current subs do have access to those city guides right now and if you stay at the current rate and can’t find them in the future I’ll email them to you. 😊
I’d love to know your thoughts?
You can also reply to this email with private feedback or send me a DM on here or Instagram.
If you’d prefer to give me an indicator anonymously then you can use the poll below, or leave a comment (comments aren’t anonymous unless your profile is, but polls always are). Even if you have more to say I’d still love you to click on an option below!
Now, as promised in the headline:
Delicious Events for your Radar
Michael & Pippa James’ Book Tour Events
Michael and Pippa founded Tivoli Road Bakery in Melbourne in the early days of sourdough bakeries. They sold it, wrote an eponymous cookbook, then another called All Day Baking, Savoury not Sweet and now this is the sweet version.
Michael has become a friend and baked me these pistachio, sour cherry and chocolate chip cookies when I went to Australia in January.
They were so good.
A version of this recipe - along with other brilliant ones - is in Sweet Seasons. But you can also pop along to any of the above events for a rare opportunity to try their baked goods.
Exeter Bakery pops up in the Pilgrm Hotel
Exploding Bakery is in residence at Pilgrm for all of September. I wrote about their excellent brownies here (I just removed it from the archive paywall). There’s a Paddington version with marmalade that I need to try. Pilgrm is one minute from Paddington station.
📌 25 London St, Tyburnia, London W2 1HH
🚆 Paddington
SIDE NOTE: I went to the Paddington Bear Experience on the Southbank near the London Eye / Waterloo Station with Maya during the holidays and, while pricey, it was fun and you can see why it costs what it does: a lot has gone into creating it!
Maya’s Bakehouse turns One
And they’re celebrating with 12 of their best selling bakes from the first year and free coffees for the first 100 people on Friday 13th September. Opens at 8am.
I love Maya’s so much I’ve written about it twice: first visit and the second one.
📌 37 Tulse Hill, London SW2 2TJ
🚆 Brixton
One enormous slice of chocolate cake
This probably won’t be news to you but, just in case, Get Baked launched their enormous multi-layered chocolate cake into Fortnum & Mason’s recently.
Big Bertha is like Bruce, which I shared on Instagram here, but with milk chocolate in the mix. I can definitely see why this probably tastes even better but would definitely have more appeal. At Fortnum’s it costs £17 a slice, which might be the other reason for the change.
Maybe our first Substack IRL meetup can be to buy and share a slice?
I’m kinda shook that Fortnum’s put this in their window:
Times they are a-changing.
A new Craft Chocolate Subscription
You might remember me saying how much I loved Exe Chocolate recently. Founder Nicola Knight has launched a subscription box. Like Dormouse’s version (which has a waiting list!) and Pump Street’s (which includes baked goods), Exe’s will feature experimental and limited edition bars. The first was an exploration of percentage using the same beans and each bar was delicious (Nicola sent me a box).
You can check it out here (not an affiliate link 😄 ).
Next week is the Speciality Fine Food Fair, one of my favourite food trade shows as it includes smaller producers. I’ll be sharing the things I find. Stay tuned!
I’m thinking I might take a week off soon to get back some time to create social media posts for all of the bakeries I’ve been to this summer, then come back here and list and link to them all. What do you think?
I will definitely be in your inboxes next week with an exciting announcement. And another question! 😁
Please do let me know your thoughts on changing the membership of The Next Delicious Thing. I really value your opinion. I show up here every week because I want to be helpful to you and the businesses I promote, so I’d love your help in making sure I am.
with love and my very best wishes for delicious things in your days ahead,
Jen x
P.S. If you appreciate these emails you can tap on the heart below or share them with other people. It means a lot to me and to the businesses I’m telling you about!
I love your newsletters and the fact they are long and chatty, there is so much info in them. If it’s possible to cover your costs with the travel guides it would be amazing if you could keep the free part of the newsletter going. Thank you for all you write and your enthusiasm! PS I have just started taking magnesium for sleep problems so would be interested in your experience.
I like the sound of the new set up. I often want to share tips I read in your newsletter, and them being free would help. Love the city guides and the sound of meet ups. Your plans sound grand!